and it's all quite a bit ****** up, isn't it?
              there's fire burning my corners black and my feet are too numb to continue up the mountain
                             and my heart is heavy
and my lips are dizzy
         and i can't fully remember how to be whole
                                                    but i like the way this feels, sick as it is
                        because the shore hates the river but loves the water
and i can't breath, can't make full sentences (how can i be full if my heart is this empty?)
                                        it's okay, though, if only because it has to be
     but i'm not complaining
                   and your eyes adjust to blackness if you've been in the dark for so long

there's only so many apologies I can whisper into the crook of your neck until my voice shrivels and cracks and takes a page from your book and is gone— perhaps, perhaps, you could tilt my chin up and purge my sin from my lips with yours

                & I look at your blood, now dried and caked under my nails, and the tears wash it out, because I weep at the monster I have become

& HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO APOLOGIZE FOR THE CRESTING WAVES I BURNED DOWN TO GET CLOSER TO YOU?

AND STILL, I DID NOT REACH THEE. I NEVER WANTED TO SWALLOW FIRE BUT MY LUNGS WERE BLACKENED ON MY WAY THROUGH TIDES TO A YOU I NEVER TOUCHED (IT WAS WORTH IT)

& if I held you to my ear I could feel your heartbeat, slow and content with my hand on your chest (speeding up as it moves down, down)

I could feel the softness of your skin, turned the deep pink of a blushing girl—the sun's work— and holding the heat of that close star's burning tendrils

I could feel movement in your muscles as your arm curls around my waist lazily, an afterthought, like it's a natural instinct to pull me tighter in your sleep

I could feel shivers on my bony spine while you kiss iridescence behind my eyes in the way your lips press where my jaw meets my neck

I could feel an utter wholeness that I've missed for so long

Except—
Except——
Except———

You're too far away, a distance that even the "phone call" between the ocean and the little child pressing the shell against her ear cannot fix

&i; am absolutely in love with the stars, how they glow with a humbling superiority from their cosmic, hallowed heights

i am kinder than the ocean waves, i hope, because they break with a strength to rival a jackhammer against the same shores they kiss gently

i am in awe when i see the evergreens— they stand powerful and proud and unreachable  and still, still, even after generations of hearing and seeing everything

i am jealous of the sun's rays, because they get to lay their tender golden fingers on your proud face while i'm far and away under the moon's guard

⁢'s for my mother, because she taught me to cook and fix a car tire

she cleaned the house and sat with a beer in front of a Sunday football game

she cried and stood by stony faced

she was both and she was everything

it's not a broken home if there are pieces missing from the beginning and it's not a sad, father-less world if you've got a mother strong enough to raise her daughter right alone